A week with Kanye West

This week I interviewed Kanye West- someone who I admire very much on a musical level. Both the College Dropout and Late Registration would figure in my Top 20 albums of all time. To me they prove you can make intelligent, musically diverse, heartfelt hip hop that still sells a shitload of copies.

Going to meet Kanye was worrying at first though. A few friends who had already interviewed him didn’t find him very friendly. To make things worse at the album playback on Tuesday he slagged off MTV claiming our award shows are fixed. And he still makes ridiculous egotistical comments like this: “All you critics who gave me one star less than full marks should eat shit and die.”

But West was a gent when he met us (me, Dael, Caitlin and Adam above) introducing himself to everyone in the room and then answering most of my questions eloquently. He made some spot on comments about hip hop too.

Kanye also claimed that he wants to compete with acts like Portishead, Radiohead and U2 with new album 808s And Heartbreak. He doesn’t rap at all on the record instead choosing to sing- he is certainly brave to change his style so much. I’m still unsure on the album having only heard it once but two of the tracks that have leaked Amazing (featuring Young Jeezy) and Heartless are well worth downloading. Get them.